Trump’s big beautiful bill impacting Arizona tech projects

The reconciliation budget, or “big beautiful bill,” will phase out tax incentives for renewable energy and advanced manufacturing.

According to the Arizona Tech Council, the impact is massive in Arizona, where multiple multi-billion-dollar solar, battery storage and other projects are ongoing or in the pipeline. They said approximately $12 billion worth of projects are now at-risk, along with thousands of jobs.

Steve Zylstra, President and CEO of Arizona Tech Council, joined “Arizona Horizon” to discuss the potential impact this may have on Arizona.

In total, $369 billion of those incentives are on the chopping block, according to Zylstra. That includes incentives for consumers, like a credit for purchasing electric vehicles, as well as incentives encouraging businesses to invest in manufacturing of green tech.

“It’s almost a complete phase out,” Zylstra said.

For the reasons why tax incentives were rolled back in the reconciliation package, Zylstra pointed to President Donald Trump’s desire to prioritize fossil fuel power over renewable resources.

“This particular administration doesn’t really believe in clean energy or electric vehicles,” Zylstra said. “You’ve heard the President of the United States talk about ‘drill baby drill;’ he’s really focused on the petroleum industry and not on the climate change issue that we’re all facing as a nation.”

As for the direct impact on Arizona, Zylstra mentioned what impact there could be if the phase out happens as currently laid out in the bill.

“I saw in June some data that suggested that if all of these cuts in the Big Beautiful Bill are put in place, that has a $58 billion, 69,000 job impact on Arizona alone,” Zylstra said.